China plots high speed rail link to USA

Chinese rail experts are drawing up ambitious plans for a high speed rail link from China to the USA, according to press reports.

According the state-run Beijing Times, the proposed route would take the train from the north-east region of China, through Siberia, under the Bering Strait into Alaska and across Canada before terminating in the USA.

It said Wang Mengshu, a railway expert at the Chinese Academy of Engineering, had said the plans involved crossing the Bering Strait with a 200km (125 miles) of undersea tunnel.

The paper reports that Chinese firms would build the project and it would be state-funded.

According to the Guardian this is just one of four ambitious rail projects.

One of these would run from London via Paris, through Berlin, Warsaw, Kiev and Moscow, through to China.

Another would begin in the south west of China and run to Singapore.

A third line would start in western China and run through the Middle East to Germany.

China has previously expressed an interest in building Britain’s own HS2 rail project.